Self Acceptance And Being Human

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

I’ve always had this problem when it comes to the concept and practice of self-improvement. And that is, that I’m incredibly hard on myself as I’m in the process of achieving my goals.  

What I mean by that is that once I’ve set a goal, then I presume myself to be not ‘fully complete’ until that goal has been achieved. I’m quite hard on myself and believe that, in that specific field, I’m not good enough until I get “there”, wherever “there” may be. 

This can, of course, be helpful in that it pushes me to work hard and put in the graft needed to achieve my goal. But it has its downsides as well - I’ll often judge myself, or I don’t accept myself for who I am because, well, I’m simply not good enough.

I think many of us have this same problem.

We’re not successful unless we’ve hit these specific milestones (specific numbers, people employed, money earned, etc.).

We’re not healthy unless we’ve achieved a specific goal(s) (weight, weight lifted, miles run, etc.).

We’re not capable in a specific way or area unless we’ve gone through a specific set of experiences or milestones in life. 

In a purely objective sense, much of those judgements may well be true. The problem arises, though, when we beat ourselves up over it, and don’t accept ourselves for who we are. We consider ourselves to be “less than” - that is, our current selves aren’t really worthy. 

And this is the real problem. This isn’t how we should be, because it puts us in a constant cycle of insecurity, of perceiving ourselves as being less than we really are. And it has far reaching ramifications across many other areas of our lives. 

Part of our concern stems from the belief that if we were to accept ourselves as we are today, that’s tantamount to accepting failure. Because we’ve now accepted mediocrity, and consequently will never achieve our lofty goals.

But we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves. The author Adam Grant observed that self-acceptance need not mean we give up on self-improvement. What it really means is that we decide “to stop beating yourself up for being human—and keep working to become a better human”.

That’s not what we’re taught as we grow up. We view ourselves from lenses that others define for us, and by standards and goals that are not our own. They become lenses and standards and goals that we’ve adopted as our own - almost always without critical judgement or thought. 

We need to create our own filters, and accept ourselves as we are. We can keep striving to improve (which I think is important), but also accept who we are, so that we enjoy that process.